Sheep go to Heaven, Goats go to Hell
by viablesangre
Summary: Either moments of humanity or the begining of their ghostly lives. Every villian of Danny Phantom used to be human,so I'm exploring the idea of that. Ember and Youngblood are up, I'm deciding on whoes next.
1. Chapter 1

Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to Hell

We don't own this SHIZZ, because the Packers are owned by the city of Green Bay and they won't sell them to me!

(I plan to write more than this, but I guess it is pretty sad.) I DO NOT ENVY GHOSTS!

It was a day like any other, the lime swirls of ectoplasmic energy were drifting lazily through the blackness of the Ghost Zone. Purple doors hanging in the air seemed perfectly innocent, at least as innocently as the Ghost Zone could be.

I was through one of these doors, in a lair of the coolest flame and edgiest of modern rock that Ember lounged. It was difficult for her to put into terms how long she had actually been in the Ghost Zone, or really how she was finally able to realize the extent of her powers as a Ghost of the Zone, but she strung together the facts of her life previous the best way she could.

She drifted off into slumber on her electric blue rug of skulls and cross bones, into memories that she could never hold together. It was, at best, like picking up handfuls of sand, as fast as she picked it up, it would run through her grasping fingers, leaving only a passing feeling of grit between them.

The days of August were creeping quickly toward Ember as the local concert scene was finally to start into full swing. She couldn't help the rush of giddiness that seemed to embrace her at the thought of spending more time with Ethan, the bassist from her band. She was filled with high hopes for the summer. They were done doing parties and open mike nights, they were starting to get closer to the type of attention that meant something to music labels.

Ethan was Ember's secret hero; he wasn't just the bassist, but a great sound guy. When he set up the kits and amps, there never was a problem of feedback or being lost in a wall of sound. She shook herself free of her thoughts as she spotted him at the tables of a small coffee shop near to where they would be playing later on the in the month.

"Yo! Ethan!" she smiled as she tried to squash the feeling of fawning over him too much "How's it looking in there?" she said as slowed her walk as she neared him.

He seemed to regard her warmly as words spilled from his lips about their newest venue. She couldn't remember the words, but it didn't matter because he was smiling at her.

Before she knew it the dream shifted to a different time, it was later in August now; they were setting up amps and laying out wires. She remembered working hard at passing out fliers and putting up posters, really setting the stage for a packed show. She felt nervous and giddy as the minutes ticked away closer to show time. Ember looked around the bar finding it had a unique charm to it, she grinned as she climbed on stage. She looked to Ethan and beamed at him, still trying to squash down the feeling of her infatuation. Slowly excitement melted into worry as only a handful of people came to hear them play. She played just the same as ever, full of fire and emotion as if the room was brimming with people rather than just the handful.

The Scene shifted again, this time to the coiling of wires and rolling the amps off the stage.

"What's with the attitude? It's not my fault no one showed! I pounded pavement to get the word out!" she snapped as Ethan grumbled something under his breath. It seemed such a petty spat, the looks on the other band members was both pitying and annoyed, as if it were possible to have the two emotions at once without one over shadowing the other. Despite the turn out, they were asked back. She was thrilled; to have another shot at the room would be a triumph.

September would roll around quicker than they would know it and they would be sure to have the whole bar packed with people ready to listen to her music.

She felt her heart pound with unexpressed emotions. It was getting harder and harder not discuss her mounting feelings for Ethan. They went from taking every moment to talk and laugh together to snapping at each other. She felt like her guts were twisting and she couldn't help but think she would talk to him the next day about it.

The Scene shifted to setting up again, it was late September now. This time they had lighting and people were streaming in. Their hard work was paying off. Ember felt everything was running higher than she could of expected for the little stage of the bar. She was tasting a tiny kiss of success, and with that she could finally work up the courage to tell Ethan that she loved him, even if they did fight over music as much as they loved the music. Nothing could have prepared her for this night. She was standing on stage, the crowd humming and her band mates were getting to the stage. Her drummer handed her a frothy beer which she took a drink of and set on an amp. She turned to see the crowd and saw Ethan come into her view. She smiled at him and he smiled at her and then her illusions smashed as she saw him holding some other woman's hand. He turned to her to kiss her lips and she had the nerve to radiate happiness. She never saw that her face wrote every line of her broken heart to her band mates, or that they took it in as heartbreak of their own. Then that's when time slowed for Ember, She remembered the curve of his face and how the lights seemed to reflect a halo in his hair. Each step he took brought him closer to the stage, each step was that fatal second that could of changed everything.

In the first step he took, the guys working on the lighting turned to gawk at the crowd of people instead of securing it to the scaffolding with zip ties. The second step was a passing shoving match for space near the edge of the scaffolding, the third step was when he was in front of an amp, which Ember took the second between steps to blink away her tears and rip a screaming cord from her guitar which threw him into the shoving match. Just one step in a different direction, a falling away instead of toward, one life or many others; It was the ironic question of what is a miracle for some and a tragedy for others.

She didn't really remember the rest of her dream.

It was the same feeling you get when you wake up from a dream, for a few seconds you remember what it was about and you have the feeling that something just didn't happen the way it should have, she yawned and felt her hair flare up as her arms protested the stretch after sleeping on her rug. She didn't usually want to leave her lair, but she had to get to a stage, a stage that should have had her name on it.


	2. Chapter 2

Oh butter biscuits! I don't own Danny Phantom.

I just want to remind you guys that these are going to run as short stand alone stories, which I'm stringing together because they are all related.** Woot go Packers!**_ I don't know about you guys, but kinda feel that if the Packers do well, Vlad can't be called a fanatic anymore if they have talent._

Youngblood paced his lair grumpily. He wasn't content with playing in the Ghost Zone and he really wanted to play pirates or cowboys and Indians, but he just didn't want to win against any ghost, he wanted a real play time.

"Avast! Ah, How would you say, "I'm bored. Let's go explore the Ghost Zone!"? He asked his ever present companion, who was currently in the form of a skeletal parrot.

His parrot sighed and answered "It doesn't really matter how you say it to me, I won't let you go alone regardless of your speeches." Youngblood wilted at the response, to which he harrumphed "Yes, let's pack the supplies and scout the seas!"

"Hooray! I mean Yo Ho and a bottle of rum!" he laughed as he popped into his captains' hat and hook hand.

They hadn't done very much exploring; they passed islands of ghostly lairs and many floating doors, even what looked like a canyon of teeth. That's when a portal opened, it opened like a moon phasing to fullness.

"Let's check that out!" Youngblood cried excitedly and dove for the open portal. Before his companion could cry out a warning, he disappeared. Never to be left behind he flapped through the portal and found himself at the mouth of a cave. The tide was low, revealing a line of mollusks and debris embedded in the cave floor.

"Ahoy there, me harty," Youngblood shouted "We've run aground on a spring tide!" he giggled as he zoomed through the air and ocean spray. "This place looks kind of familiar, doesn't it?"

His parrot said nothing but looked worried, "We shouldn't leave the portal; once it closes it might not open again for years… if at all!" But Youngblood wasn't really listening to him.

"Don't be a lily livered bilge rat! We've run aground and we must explore these shores!" He laughed and took flight.

There was a small town a short flight away, and on the edge of the town, there was a home that was well worn and full of people. An old truck rumbled toward the home then stopped as the engine shuddered to a stop. A man stepped out of the truck with a look of aging quicker than his years, and a younger man slid out of the passage side door, his shoulders and neck making loud pops as he stretched, the same look of the years being unkind painted on his tired face.

A harried woman set a table with the help of weedy looking young man, and a little boy, who looked he rather be playing than setting up for supper. It was almost Norman Rockwell picturesque. They were hard working average people, taking every measure to remain being a family, not that the youngest son of the family saw it that way. It was just another tense supper, where his father badgered his older brother to 'do something' with his life, and trying to convince him that school was where his future lay, since he was too stringy for the work his oldest brother did . All in all, it made the youngest wish for adventures of the open plain or on the high seas, maybe even out in space.

Youngblood couldn't help but feel a tingle of interest, he couldn't figure out why. It was a strange feeling, seeing a living kid play with his mashed potatoes while the tension from the adults or near adults was just as thick.

The dinner dispersed and plates were scraped and washed. The youngest went to his mother and asked her if he could play in the rapidly falling night. She waved him off and told him to ask his brother to join him. He dashed off and asked his brother who was currently opening books and setting out papers, he was the younger brother after all. He was again waved away, so he tried his older brother.

He was sitting on the front porch, knocking back a tin can of beer. He looked tired but said he didn't mind. It was an innocent game of pirates on the high seas.

The game had to be played; one could argue that it had a destined winner.

The scream of anguish that rent the night later on would become a local legend, and myth as more time passed.

Youngblood was confused; people dying just seemed scary and lonely. He heard his mother screaming her grief and pain, and as they covered his body with a crisp white sheet, he saw something leave the body. Then a flash of something he knew a green fume of ectoplasm. At the sight of it, a long buried memory dusted itself off. He was new to death and it hurt to hear everything, he couldn't move forward and there was no going back.

"Why couldn't he just stay home? Why did he have to keep chasing his stupid dreams and playing his stupid games?" His mother sobbed and pounded her fists with exhaustive rage and pain against her husband's hollow sounding chest. He looked gutted and silent, letting her pain wash over him like waves on the green sea they lived next to.

It hurt to hear her. He thought she loved him and that she would never call him stupid. He would have given anything to make what she said just a dream, that he hadn't died and that she loved him still.

It was a horrible thing to say, why did she say that? Didn't she love him as much as her elder ones? The sting of her rejection settled into his basic ectoplasmic form and left a barb of anger. He was supposed to be babied and loved longer than either of his brothers; instead he got her wailed confession of hating his stupidity. It wasn't his fault, he didn't ask for this! The un-fairness of it was a weight on his ecto body. If he couldn't be his mother's special little man, why should his brother's get the privilege? Why should any other youngest child get the chance he didn't? If his parents didn't care about him or his dreams, why should he care about them? The feelings solidified in his new ghostly core and he faded to the Ghost Zone, where with time he would grow and change into a form where he could really do what he needed to do.

It was a numb silence that followed them as they flew back to the cave. The parrot turned his head toward his unusually silent partner.

"Do you think the portal is still open?" he asked as he gripped his shoulder as they landed in front of the cave.

"It probably is, the tide is still out, this portal is likely timed to the tides." He answered, not bothering with his pirate speech. "Let's not bother this portal again; I don't think I'll ever have to get reminded of this adventure ever again." The old feelings that helped bore him into the Ghost Zone flared again, having been remembered after so long. They felt like a fidgeting worm in his belly.

His parrot merely nodded as they both flew through the waning portal, back toward a lair with half finished plans and a ghostly ten gallon hat.


End file.
